Wednesday, July 05, 2006

A splash of good news and Event #10 preview

Today while rooting through my wallet I discovered at $500 Paris chip that I'd hidden away at some point during our miraculous craps run! So we really won $3,350 not a measly $2,850. Ah the joys of being a gambler. Tomorrow is my one and only non hold 'em event. It's a $1,500 buy-in 7 card stud event that last year drew 472 players. 1st was $192,150, 8th was $17,585 and 40th was $1,955. To date the largest 7 card stud event I've played was a $200 event at the Oaks Club, but I've won outright several $50 and $100 stud events on pokerstars.com with around 80 players. I haven't played a ton of stud lately, but I think it's more important to have strong tournament skills than it is to have strong stud skills (I have both however). For those of you who don't know in 7 card stud every player antes (there are no blinds and only 8 players) and is then dealt two cards face down and one card face up. Then, there is a round of betting which is started by whoever has the lowest card (suit counts). This player has a forced bet called the bring in which is usually 25% to 50% of a small bet (ie in a game with 200/400 limits the ante might be 25 and the bring in might be 50 or 100). Rather than raise if a player wishes to bet more they can only "complete the bet" (if the limits are 200/400, the bring in is 50 and you're next to act you're options are to fold, call 50, or "complete the bet" to 200 - there is no raising at this point, but a player after you could raise to 400 if you complete the bet). The players are then dealt a total of 3 MORE card face up and 1 card face down with a betting round in between each card. Each of these betting rounds are referred to as "streets" so if you have two face down cards and 3 face up cards you are betting on 5th street. 7th street is referred to as the river just like in Hold 'em. I'll fire up an update when I go down the toilet or make it to day 2.

p.s. I've really enjoyed all the comments I've recieved on my blog so if you've been reading it let me know if you've enjoyed it, how I can improve it, or what you'd like to hear more about. Questions are always welcome. A few examples might be: Is Phil Gordon much taller in person (Yes! He's freakishly tall, about 6' 7")? What's it like being away from your friends and family for so long (It sucks!)? How do you cope with winning or losing thousands of dollars every day (long answer)? How did you get to be so damn good looking (wouldn't you like to know)? It makes me feel good every morning when I check and see that people care about what I'm doing. Except you guys at the Census (get back to counting people you jerks!).

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Son,

Don’t ever beat yourself up over a hand or a round! If you do, the negative thoughts will get coded in your brain and will eventually affect your judgment. You need to develop a set of psychological techniques to handle this natural tendency. Learn how to block your negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones.

This is one of the major problems I face as a stock trader.

Love,

Dad

Anonymous said...

Mr. Huff,

I look forward to reading your blog posts, so keep up the good work.

Perhaps you wouldn't mind describing for the crowd here any odd clothes/hats/good luck charms that the poker loonies around you are wearing. I mean besides the ubiquitous sweat pants of course.

Amanda and Shawn said...

Dave,

Keep your head up! Shawn and I are rooting for you!

Amanda Fleming

Anonymous said...

That's right! Keep your chin up and concentrate on the good things. For example, sit back and enjoy as your friends use words like "ubiquitous" and "sweatpants" in the same sentence. :-)

Anonymous said...

I know your dad and I are having a lot of fun reading all of the news. Of course, I like to hear about all of the characters and the things they do. We just got caught up on everything yesterday and are marveling at it all. Keep on keeping on...your day is right around the corner! Sheer will and determination along with some luck should do the trick.

Anonymous said...

Of course, I'm taking for granted your skill added to the above...

Anonymous said...

Dave,

this website is like a cheap drug. How about your odd tendencies and good luck things. Ever do any naked pushups before a tourney?? Have fun out there

Anonymous said...

I hope you DO know how much we enjoy reading about everything. Your writing is very entertaining to read! Yesterday I couldn't stop refreshing poker pages and your blog in hopes of getting some good news but I know that it will come in time. I can't wait to hear how the stud tourney is going....even though it is just starting. Goodluck!

As for questions... is it exciting for you to be playing in tournaments with all of the top poker players in the world? I would think it'd be crazy to be in a room full of all of the people in my profession who've really made it huge!

Anonymous said...

Dave! I just figured out how to read/post comments on this biznatch. Duh. Anyway, congrats on your one cash so far. No doubt, tournaments with such huge fields are a very dicey affair. I think your problem is that you are playing too many quality hands. Clearly from your blog I can conclude that you are putting too much faith in AA, KK, and QQ and perhaps overlooking the value of AJ, KQ, etc. Ha ha.

Seriously, it sounds like you are playing well and that's what matters. The luck will come around eventually. If some jackass is going to bust your rockets with KQ, what can you do? We'd all take that action any day of the week.

As for questions, I'm not sure what percentage of your readers would care, but I'm anxious for some info on Matt's results. Maybe you could give us a quick update on him?

Good luck in the rest of your events!

-Mike

Anonymous said...

Wow, Dave, this is really cool! I wish you the best in your money winning! Thanks for sending me the website and thinking of me and Ryan, he'll get a kick out of this too! Though we both freak out at the prospect of gambling more than $40... Well, I'll keep reading and I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!!
-Ewa

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